Field of the Invention
The disclosure in the present specification relates to a medical image processing system, a medical image processing apparatus, a control method thereof, and a recording medium.
Description of the Related Art
There is a mechanism where multiple medical images, generated by modalities such as X-ray computed tomography (CT) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), are used to generate volume data on a computer, and volume rendering is performed to three-dimensionally display parts of the human body.
This mechanism is realized by a computer (or application) called a medical 3D workstation. In other words, a user needs to have such an environment to perform 3D display of human body parts using medical images. Accordingly, 3D data is generated in formats such as virtual reality modeling language (VRML) format or STereoLithography (STL) format files representing parts of the human body, and displayed. Thus, 3D display of parts of the human body can be performed even without the above-described environment.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2013-138763 discloses a mechanism where a contour of a bone is extracted from voxel data generated from multiple medical images, and output as 3D data in the STL format. There also is a mechanism where human body parts are not only displayed in 3D in a virtual manner on a computer, but also output as formed objects formed by a 3D forming apparatus. These formed objects are used in the medical field and in research. Outputting such formed objects from a 3D forming apparatus requires knowledge regarding medicine, knowledge regarding image processing of medical images, and further knowledge regarding 3D forming apparatus, and accordingly is not readily accessible.
A mechanism disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-86576 had a problem in that a user commissioning a service business to form such a formed object needed to know beforehand what sort of formed objects can be formed from medical images sent to the service business. In other words, the commissioning side had to recognize what part of the human body a cross-section medical image being sent shows, and what organs (body parts) are included in that cross-section. Otherwise, there is the possibility that an order might be placed to form an organ that cannot be formed from the medical image. Accordingly, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-86576 discloses a mechanism where a formed object of an objective body part can be formed simply by transmitting to the system of the service business medical images, the medical images, the body part which the commissioning part wants output as a formed object, and other instructions necessary for the forming.
As for another problem, the mechanism in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-86576 permitted the commissioning user to commission the same formation time after time, leading to a greater processing load on the server at the service business. The service business server performs image processing to extract human body parts from medical images. Volume data needs to be generated to performing forming from medical images at the 3D forming apparatus, and the processing load of extracting a particular part from the generated volume data is greater than with two-dimensional image processing. That is to say, each time the commissioning user forgets that a formation was commission and places the same order again, the server has to perform the image processing just that many times, leading to an increased processing load.
As for another problem, the mechanism in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2013-138763 requires the above-described environment to generate three-dimensional data, after all. That is to say, users who had few opportunities to perform 3D display of human body parts have found it difficult to casually view 3D data. Even if the user were able to prepare the above-described environment, it would be difficult to extract a desired body part unless the user has skills for operating the application and sufficient knowledge of image processing for execution on medical images.